


you'd be a lovely person, if you were someone else

by britpop



Category: Blur, Britpop - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-10 18:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11132634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/britpop/pseuds/britpop
Summary: Based on the photos of Richey and Damon in the NME offices in 1992. They're the first to arrive and Damon steadfastly irritates Richey.





	you'd be a lovely person, if you were someone else

**Author's Note:**

> two fics in one week, yea ! though this one's a lot more light and more of an exersise in conversation and getting into character more. hope it's entertaining, though ! the timeline is a bit mixed up, but it essentially takes place somewhere in may - june of 1993. title from robyn hitchcock's "i wish i liked you."
> 
> love you all loads x

Upon the request of an undesirable music-industry coworker, Damon found himself pushing open the doors to an unremarkable office space for New Music Express. The circumstances were unclear, though they were undoubtedly bound to be in regards to the “uprising” of what was now being called Britpop - something he was steadfastly becoming the figurehead of.  
He leaned over the front desk, arm bent beneath his chest and a hand tucked into his pocket, and sighed his name. From a distance, he felt a sensation like an insect crawling up his spine as he spoke, and he began to feel hot in the face when he became aware of it. There was someone looking. _No, not looking,_ he thought. _Watching, observing, spying …_ He shifted slightly. _Is this really that important?_

“I was asked here.” He mumbles, rainy eyes cascading down on the secretary.  
“You’ll be going to the room just down there, the second door down with the transparent walls.” The secretary replied, gesturing with her elegantly manicured fingers to the door of the room.  
Damon turned towards her and smiled, politely, and was sure to fix his demeanor to fit an air of confidence, in case the on looker was prepared for confrontation. 

As he turned to face the door, he became anxious, and for a second peered inside to find a face that sent his heart into despair. He was somewhat awe struck to find his gaze at the forefront of a suspiciously quiet man, who sat with his gaze turned downwards and fingers resting gently against his cheek. He seemed to be lost in thought, so far gone that for a moment Damon recalled the lessons of seizures he attended as a child, and found the image of a man frozen in time at the back of his mind.  
He swallowed hard, suddenly a squeamish little boy, and reached for the doorknob. There was no way this could have been the perpetrator of the feeling he’d just experienced, this frail thing? _Well he couldn’t harm a fly,_ he thought to himself. But besides this miniscule reassurance, he could not diminish the anxiety thrashing about within him. He turned the knob, and awaited impact.

He stepped in slowly to the room, shutting the door against his back quietly and staring wide eyed down at the man who continued to stay in his previous position. He believed him for a time to be an illusion, but soon the man’s wide brown eyes flickered towards him, however the pensive expression on his face remained. He looked at him as he had looked at the carpeted floors, as though it wasn’t really there, and in a sense Damon looked back with the same shallowness.

“I’m Damon,” he began haphazardly. “I was asked here, to this room. I’m terribly sorry for intruding if this is the wrong room, I was expecting an executive or … Something of the likes.” He trailed off, staring back at the man whose gaze did not move from his own. He could not help but feel as though at the man’s eyes were trapping him, slowly, into some kind of prison. Like a spider does to a fly. “It’s, but this is the room.” He finished finally, letting out a sharp breath.  
“Yes, this is the room.” The man replied, with a voice so quiet that he didn’t seem like a threat for a second, until he met his eyes again from a brief departure. 

He stood there, watching, before he moved to take a seat a little distance away from the boy. “I’ll just sit here, if that isn’t an issue with you, of course.” He hesitated to relax in case the man opposed, but instead he gestured towards the chair he had chosen. 

There was a silence that lasted at least a quarter of his remaining lifespan, and he watched the man chew on his fingers from the corner of his eye during it all before he felt it necessary to speak.  
“I’m Damon, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He said as he leaned over the arm of the chair and extended a hand.  
The man smiled, softly, and shook his hand. “Richey,” he mused. Damon noticed the jumbled Welsh accent, one he had only heard on television, and admired it’s delicacy in accompaniment to to the smoothness if his hands.  
As their hands separated, Damon’s blue eyes trailed down Richey’s arms, unsubtly noting every scar and darker circle on his skin resulting from innumerable cigarettes to the body. For some reason, perhaps due to the distance created between television screens and human perception, he didn’t really believe in such a thing as self violence. He always saw the man as a timid, distant, yet approachable boy – because he hardly looked as though even on the cusp of manhood – who one could sit and listen to obscure music with. But as he gazed upon his spotted body of the boy, a terrifying realization that these things are a painful reality began to set into his stomach.  
Mindlessly, he extended a hand to his arm and ran a thumb gently against his skin.  
“I know this is a foolish question, Richey, but are you doing alright presently?” He asked, a softness in his blue eyes.  
The boy smiled small, tilting his head at him and placing his hand against his. “I’m alright, presently.” His face was delicate, sculpted as though by a master. His eyes wide, always, deep and brown and an ocean to drown in. Damon knew he could not trust him, not in the sense that he would wish any ill will on upon him, just that he seemed to be the type who would tuck everything under the rug.  
Damon nodded, patiently, as though having understood some kind of a secret code only the two them had ever been informed of, and leaned back in his seat. 

“Were you called here as well?” He asks.  
“Yes, for what I don’t know.” Richey replies, shifting in his seat again to fix his brown eyes back on the knitted carpet. 

“I wonder if it’s something important.”  
“Doubtful,” Richey began. “Nothing propagated by an organization like the NME ever have anything of importance to say. They usually just have more ideas to sculpt one into a pop idol, clean and vacuous, but I suppose somebody has to bring relative life to the mannequins.”  
Damon crossed his legs, dwelling on the comment for a moment before speaking. “Pop people have pop emotions, they’re not to be trusted. I’m still trying to learn how to adapt to life as a pop person.”

“Why be a pop person at all, if you’re struggling with the role?” He asked, beginning to chew on his fingers again.  
“Well, that’s what I’m bound to do simply by the fact that I am in the public eye.”  
“I suppose so. But pop people are breeded from the ground up. They have smooth skin, free of imperfection, devoid of time. Pop people remain a fixed imaged. Years after both you and I are gone, we will still be remembered as how we are today.”

He spoke these words as though they were nothing, just mindless small talk. He didn’t appear to care too much about what he said, and as Damon remained reclined comfortably in his seat, he couldn’t help but notice that the man seemed increasingly uncomfortable with every second.  
“What was it that the Who said?” He asked, sitting up some and leaning his body towards Richey.  
“‘I hope I die before I get old.’” He replied, automatically, as though it had already been on the tip of his tongue. He shrugged, holding his hand in a manner in which suggested that he often held a cigarette between his fingers. “All pop people die once they begin to show some wear and tear. It doesn’t matter if you get ‘old’ or not. History remembers only your youth, that’s how it goes.” 

There was another period of silence, but this time for contemplation. This conversation appeared dead from the start, not in the manner in which the two were incompatible – they very well could be – but in that dialogue was so bleak there was no where else to go but into a corner.  
“I see you as a cat person, you seem like a cat person. Your mannerism mimic that of a cat's.” He said, trying to lighten the mood.  
“I like dogs.” He said plainly, “I have one at home. I think they would be the love of my life.”  
“Ah,” Damon let out, nodding. “The love of my life, I’d have to say, is my girlfriend.” 

Richey rubbed his eyes for a moment, then his temples. “I’d say my true love is still Nicky.”  
“Isn’t he married?” He asked, gently.  
The man fell silent, seemingly unaware that there was anything said to him. He watched him as he sat still, chewing on his fingers.  
“I don’t think anything of love, really.” He stated quite hypocritically, “anyone who loves another is just in a state of denial about their own lack of self worth, aren’t they? Love is just a pleasant way of proclaiming your envy. ‘Hello, I am insanely jealous of you!’” Followed by a quiet laugh. 

“I, for one, believe in love quite full heartedly. I believe love can, at times, be a road block, but isn’t life itself a road block? You just have to move past it, really …”  
“You can’t move past life, Damon. But the future isn’t something to speak about in the NME offices at midday, is it? I’m hardly drunk.”  
Damon raised an eyebrow at the remark, feeling somewhat attacked by the tone of his voice. “Have you ever had a had a girlfriend, Richey?” He asked with extreme caution, even moving away slightly in his chair in case of emergency.  
“Once, but upon her asking I explained I wouldn’t have the time to be in a relationship. I was just beginning on Burroughs’ ‘Naked Lunch’ collection, so I wouldn’t have been able to.”  
Damon flinched at his reply. There was a contemplation in his mind about the relation between television and literature. One could just as easily use the excuse for the other as they could the latter. Ultimately, the manner in which one gains relative pleasure from is unnecessary, only the entertainment and quality of it, and he was now apart of this world as an enabler.

Now as a pop idol, he was another meaningless in one ear and out the other broadcasting program. He thought of a song of Richey’s, one he hadn’t heard in ages, but remained locked in his memory nonetheless.  
He turned to face him, elbow placed firmly on the arm of his chair. “‘Your pretty face offends because it’s something real I can’t touch,’” Richey looked over at him smoothly, but in a manner so quick you could tell he was interested. “Do you believe this can happen to men as well?”

“Manipulation is the condition of the famous, Damon. Everyone is make-believe. Everyone is subject to conditioning to fit an image. As an example, your pretty face and middle class way of dress makes your records sell easily. Everyone can become an incomer to themselves, especially once their identity has been erased by the word.  
However, Damon, you’re a man. You’ll never be able to understand what it is like to live as a woman in a world full of men. Men like to destroy, the lyric, you know. A woman’s beauty, body, soul, sexuality is all just a piece of meat to men. Women are relentlessly abused by the masculine on all levels, without exception.” He explained, at length and without pause to think as if these words were memorized scripture.  
“But aren’t you a man, Rich?” He asked, tilting his head and lighting his blue eyes at the boy who seems nothing short of bored with his existence.  
“I wish I wasn’t.” He replied shortly.  
“Shouldn’t you be so happy to be a man? According to you, you’ve the upperhand on all because of it.” At this point Damon was just poking pins in Richey’s head, assuming this would be the last and only time he would be this close with him for his lifetime. No harm in inquiries.  
He looked upwards at the ceiling, rubbing his jaw. “I don’t feel the need to justify my gender or … My non-gender, or women to you. I don’t believe … In what you’re trying to do to me right now.”  
“I’m not trying to do anything to you but get to know you.” Damon replied, quickly.  
“You can’t do that.” He mumbled. “Knowing people is inhuman, just let everyone be.”  
“Would you rather be a woman?” He asked, smirking.  
“I would rather not be anything, Damon. I would rather not be here.” His fingertips moved back towards his lips and he batted his eyelashes towards his hips. “I would rather be at home, but not a person at home, just something invisible and weightless that can play with his dogs.” 

“You’re just a quiet, type, aren’t you, Richey? You don’t want any of this.”  
“I don’t want any of this and you’re just trying to pick needles in me, Damon. I’m tired.” He mumbled, still chewing on the skin around his nails. He pulled his legs to his chest and rested his chin on his knees. “I love the way the flowers grow, Damon. I love the natural things that come from the earth, everything man touches is soiled.”  
Damon responded with a pout, nearly bored with the dreariness, but to a point understood the touch of man killing what was meant to be pure. 

Modern life wasn’t suitable for someone like Richey, it seemed, but ten years didn’t seem far back enough, either. He couldn’t place him in a time, just a place. In the room shown in numerous magazines, which itself seemed timeless. Being near Richey made him feel as though a large pane of glass was falling slowly on top of him, but never crashing down on his head. 

“I don’t think we’re so different, Richey.” He mumbled, lightly scratching the side of his face.  
“Okay, Damon.” He replied.  
“The single I’ve just released, excuse me, we’ve just released, y’know, ‘For Tomorrow?’”  
“Yeah, I know.”  
“And then yours’, ‘From Despair to Where?’”  
“I definitely know.”  
“I don’t think they’re too far off in substance, you know? I think we’re on relatively similar track, just maybe l just see things in a brighter light than you do sometimes. We’re different but the same.”  
Richey’s head slowly moved towards his hands as Damon spoke, stretching his skinny legs out and holding back a whine of pain. “I know you’re trying, Damon, and I appreciate that, but I don’t think we’re quite the same at all, actually and I don’t think just ‘brightening up’ will fix anything.”  
“I was just saying we don’t have too different world views, I don’t think we see the world so differently. And I think the singles we’ve released really show that, y’know ?” 

He dragged his hands down his face, pulling the skin under his eyes to show the redness inside, and cursed to himself quietly. “So you’re equating your quaint, simplified observations about the modern world to what I and my friends have done with our work as to date?” He asked in the tone of a complaint, beginning to feel a hangover kicking in late.  
“I’m not ‘equating,’ Rich, I’m just comparing. Equating would be telling you that our work is of equal weight, substantially, of course, and –”  
“You’re one of those types that likes to use lengthy words and a tone of voice that shows off your self-evaluated esteem, aren’t you? Nothing you're saying means anything, you’re probably off your head on something.  
And besides, your ‘observation,’ I’ll have you know we are not inspired by you or take any influence of you. We, Nicky, James, Sean, and I, we don’t really think about you. We are so alienated from the likes of your brand of pretentiousness that you can hardly understand our words. So, kindly, please, if you will, fuck off with your insinuations of similarity, will you? Neither of us want to be here and neither of us wants to know each other, either, Damon. Don’t lie to me and tell me otherwise.” He spat back, abruptly, against Damon’s self assured and pompous tone, leaving a trace of smoke from the fire Damon had someone how lit inside him.

“Well you’re quite the bitchy type, aren’t you?” Damon muttered, resting back in his chair and placing his knuckles against his jaw.


End file.
